The Kings Of Leon are cocks

Kings Of Leon want women to get their tits out at their shows:

Caleb Followill said: ''We're up there pouring our hearts out and if someone wants to show us a little skin, then that will only add a little variety to our show. So anyone out there, preferably of the female variety... but if anyone wants to hang a little dong, we'll look into that too.''

I think there's enough dong on display at your shows, Caleb.

Gordon in the morning: Rich as Kings

Didn't Gordon do the "Robbie and Gary are making a Brokeback Mountain style video" more than once, and weeks ago? Perhaps he's hoping we've forgotten as he does it again.

I suppose this time there's a single, grainy photo. Of, erm, the two sat in a bar.

Elsewhere, Caleb from The Kings Of Leon tries to explain why the new album is art, and says possibly the worst thing he could say:

"We're already plenty rich, we don't need it. We're like thousand-aires, multiple thousands, multiple."

I know he's trying to say 'we're not doing this for the money' - although as Elton John and Bono demonstrate, having lots of money never stops you wanting some more to keep it company - but is there anything less attractive than someone pushing their bank statements at you to try and sell their wares?

Gordon in the morning: Your cut-out-and-throw-away guide to the Brits

It's Brits day, the most important day in the year for record company executives and Gordon has published a small guide to everything you need to know.

Like Coldplay being involved, for example. That tells you all you need to know.

Coldplay are thinking of doing something nice for their fans. Chris Martin is worried about the high cost of tickets:

“What we want to do is try to giveaway a live album for free.

“We’re playing a lot of shows in the summer and I think what we would like to do is — bearing in mind the recession we are in — record the live album then give it as a gift.

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“We are just trying to work out how to do that.

“It’s obviously a bit tricky in terms of record contracts and things but it would be great.

“It’s a way of saying thank you.

“It’s a tough economy and people are paying a lot of money for tickets.

“We are trying to work out a way that, when you hand your ticket in at the door, you get given the recording.

“It would be such a cool thing to do.

“We just feel really grateful at the moment for all the support we get from our fans.”

Actually, that is quite a nice gesture, but to be honest: if you're worried that your fans are paying a large price for tickets for the gig, why not just drop the ticket price?

You know who the real losers will be, though? The poor music lovers who've been dragged to a Coldplay gig by loved ones or children who actually like the band and will not only have to sit through a show, but will have an album of live Coldplay foisted on them, too.

Coldplay's life right now? It's crazy, right Chris?

Chris adds: “We are touring until November. We fly straight to Australia after the Brits, which is crazy."

God, yeah. That's absolutely crazy. Getting into a plane and flying across to do some work in a foreign country. It's not like people in every field of business do that every day, is it?

With a straight face, the Kings Of Leon try to pretend that the Brits mean more to them than The Grammys:

Frontman Caleb says: “We always knew The Brits was the Grammys of the UK. So we basically knew that was our Grammy. It was always the biggest shot that we had."

Actually, that sounds more like they'd assumed the qualifying bar had been set lower for winning a Brit. Still, it's nice that Caleb knows to flatter the provincial audience.

It's funny that one-third of Gordon's Brit coverage is handed over to the Kings Of Leon, though - wasn't Gordon saying just the other day how there's so much major British talent you can hardly find space to fit it all in?

The Pet Shop Boys interview is palmed off to Chris Stroud - somehow, had Gordon written it, I doubt you'd have got a plug for the Friendly Fires in there. And you can't go wrong with Neil and Chris:

Singer Neil, 54, explains: “Chris never usually gets excited about awards. When we won for West End Girls, he watched the event from the comfort of his living room.

“He’s coming this time, though. If you’ve got the entire music industry saying they quite like what you’ve done over the years, you can’t be too cynical.”

Chris, 49, says: “I thought they only gave this kind of award to rock bands.

“It was a real surprise. But it’s also our silver jubilee this year. So I reckon we should stage some street parties to mark the occasion.”

Gordon, meanwhile, is sticking himself in the middle of his story about Ant and Dec releasing 'competing' charity singles for charity. The pair are trying to help out cash-strapped ITV, and raise awareness of the plight of a channel too often ignored in these days of well-crafted entertainment. "It's all too easy to turn away from ITV, especially when times are hard and you feel you've heard all their stories too many times. We just want people to give them a second chance" explained Ant.

Gordon's teamed up with Ant, or possibly Dec, to throw his support behind his record rather than Dec's. Or possibly Ant's. It's not like he's been assigned one by the PR team, though. Oh, no:

Dec is a good man, but he lost the vote of me and every other bloke in the UK when he started dating Sky Sports stunner GEORGIE THOMPSON.

"Oh, yes, I shan't be buying that young man's charity record, as he has apparently had a date with somebody I've never heard off from the football programme."
Here's Gordon and TV's Ant "at Bizarre HQ". Gordon is explaining the ancient craft of journalism to Dec - "and then you click on the little pair of scissors, and then come back here and click on the pot of glue, and change all the bits where it says 'Heat has been told' to 'I, Gordon, have been told'..."

Gordon in the morning: Kings Of Leon on the brink?

If you wade through what is a bloody awful Bizarre this morning (Jodie Marsh, Britney Spears is pretty) you do get to quite an eye-catching story: The Kings Of Leon tour at risk as the band, supposedly, fall out:

The FOLLOWILL lads have had a major bust-up over frontman CALEB’s boozing.

The band told me earlier this year that they had turned their backs on their hell-raising rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

But Caleb has been hitting the bottle big time, causing tension between him and his brothers NATHAN and JARED, and their cousin MATTHEW.

Gordon reckons the band haven't spoken for a "couple of weeks" and that management are getting nervous with the arena tour about to start. There's even quite a clever headline: KOL? with the "KO" in red.

But Gordon doesn't seem confident in the story - it's so hedged, it's buried down today's business, and it ends like this:

I hope they make up in time because this tour — which sold out in minutes — promises to cement their status as one of the best rock acts today.

So either we're going to get a "you heard it here first" or Gordon can just go "phew, it never came to that, just like I hoped".

Meanwhile, Pete Samson is again in charge of the splash, about "junkie diva" Amy Winehouse "planning a split" from Blake. This is tagged as an exclusive, but given that the Bizarre column has been predicting this since about 1934, it's not really so very exclusive.

Leons leave Liam livid

It's confusing, isn't it, Liam Gallagher, when bands don't just make the same record over and over again?

"I like Kings Of Leon, but I don't know about this fucking new record. I like the old stuff. I like (singer Caleb Followill's) voice. When they first come out I was going, 'Who the fuck is this?' They were cool, and now they've all got their sleeves cut off.
"It seems to me they've gone for the bucks, man. I'm not dissing (insulting) them because I fucking really like them, but it's like they've got this U2 sound and you can do better than that."

I should point out that it's ContactMusic who feel their audience might not understand the concept of 'dissing' and thus needed to have it explained for them.

The Kings Of Leon have so far resisted the temptation to point out being lectured on making poor-quality cash-cow albums by Oasis is like getting told by Sarah Palin that you should read more.

At last - Caleb Kings talks sense

I can nod wholeheartedly and genuinely with Caleb Followill when he says Sex On Fire was a rubbish idea:

"I just had this melody and I didn't know what to say. Then one day I just sang "this sex is on fire" and I laughed. I thought it was terrible, but the rest of the band were like, 'it's good, it's got a hook'. I was like 'fuck off!' but I ended up writing it," he said.

Of course, we do split again when he decides it was worth recording the song.

Apparently, it's all down to the sex factor:

"There's an element of sex that's expected in our songs so I tried to wrap it all up in one song. If you read the lyrics you'll find it's got some quite visual lyrics in it. It's a pretty sexy song actually, but I knew after writing 'Sex On Fire', I couldn't write verses about making out, or going to the movie theatre with a girl," he said.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really think I've ever looked to Kings Of Leon for an element of sex. Indeed, they're so far removed from sex that typing 'kings of leon' into Google actually has the same effect of installing a porn filter on your computer.